The BBC White Season only shows how little Auntie has really changed

I hope you are enjoying ‘White Season’ on the BBC — a brave and groundbreaking attempt by the corporation to devote 0.003 per cent of its airtime to issues which bother 92 per cent of its licence payers. One of the senior commissioning monkeys at the BBC, Richard Klein, admitted that white people — some of whom he has met — have been underserved by the corporation, and especially ‘working-class’ white people. Mind you, it is surely difficult to serve such a hidden and secretive tranche of the population, especially when they live beneath stones and only venture out to get drunk and shout ‘darkie!’ at passers-by. But at least the BBC has tried to understand these awful people and shown them where they are going wrong.

One of the films during the White Season was about a white (i.e. British) girl growing up in a part of the north of England which is heavily populated by Muslim immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. The BBC has not shirked from dealing with immigration issues before, of course. There is a huge and very costly unit within the BBC which tells broadcasters precisely how they should deal with tensions occasioned by ethnic minorities moving into traditionally white areas. Broadcasters should at all times be on the side of the immigrant communities, rather than the side of the racist indigenous whites. Politicians who try to stick up for the whites should be kicked from pillar to post and their arguments ridiculed. Forgive me if this seems to be a simplification — but that is how it felt back in the days when I worked for the BBC.

But maybe things have changed. These days, the stuff that was considered beyond the pale and racist even three years ago is now uttered, open-faced, by the boss of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and by inner-city Labour MPs.